“I will do what I can, of course, Aunt Helen; but I must frankly admit that I shall have very little influence.”
“I only wish Providence had made you one of my daughters. If you and Marjorie, for instance, had been
my daughters, and Eileen had been you, then things might have been quite pleasant, for you would have influenced Marjorie and brought her back again into the right ways. As it is, however——”
“As it is, we must make the best of things,” said Letitia.
There came a ring at the hall-door, and Mrs. Acheson and the redoubtable Belle were ushered in. Mrs. Acheson, in her usual somewhat diffident manner, kissed Mrs. Chetwynd, and then Belle flew up to her and gave her a little peck on her cheek.
“How do?” she cried. “Where are the girls? I am most anxious to see them at once. Pray, don’t ring; I’ll run up to them. I know the old schoolroom. I have a great deal to say. You know I go up again next week, and can think of nothing else. But I determined that whoever else was left in the cold, I must interview Marjorie and Eileen. Mother, have you got my small Virgil in your bag? I am writing a paper on that great man, and I wish to read it to the girls in order to get their opinion.”
“They know nothing whatever about the classics,” interrupted Mrs. Chetwynd. “I believe they are going out for a walk; would you like to go with them?”
“I don’t think we shall have time for that,” replied Belle. “I’ll find them; don’t you trouble.”
She nodded to Mrs. Chetwynd and to her mother in a friendly, offhand style, and left the room. Mrs. Chetwynd glanced at Letitia, of whom Belle had not taken the slightest notice, and the young girl followed the eccentric, scholarly undergraduate of St. Wode’s upstairs.
Marjorie and Eileen had an old-fashioned schoolroom at the top of the house, They had cleaned it out themselves, and put it into order according to their individual